


Here passing by

by ShaelinFloats



Category: Formula 1 RPF, Motorsport RPF
Genre: A bit sad, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-05
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-23 13:15:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21320767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShaelinFloats/pseuds/ShaelinFloats
Summary: He should answer, he gets that, but he just can't do it. He should reach inside his pocket and whip out his phone—answer. All hours and days he's waited for Pierre to call, and now he does.
Relationships: Pierre Gasly/Charles Leclerc
Comments: 9
Kudos: 31





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Imagine if...

Pierre's parents and two of his older brothers are on their way out through the entrance door when he finally leaves his room and comes down the staircase. They are going downtown to pick up new ski equipment and lunch. The door shuts, and Pierre hears their Volvo reverse down the driveway and take off into the distance. And then the whole house drowns in silence. No one screams, no one argues, no one sings, no one vacuum cleans the floors, clatters or slams. No music is on, everything is quiet. The ceiling lights doesn't swing, furniture doesn't rotate. The wooden floor, their expensive carpet, dad's whirling armchair—everything unmoving as if a nuclear war had just ended. Bewildered, Pierre looks around, and it feels as though he's beholding his childhood home for the first time.   
The Mars-sun casts its light through the big panorama windows inside the living room. Pierre opens the terrace door, the air is fresh and clear like after heavy rain, a world that God has cleaned. As if everything is new, and you’re allowed to forget about the mistakes you've made. The weather has changed and its plus degrees. Near the house wall, tiny snowdrops are making their way out of the ground. He sits down on the terrace step, drinks some Red Bull and doesn't even worry about letting the cold inside.   
  
On the other side of their fence lies Charles’s house in the shadows. Suddenly he spots Charles staring at him through his living room window. For how long has he done that? It's hard to notice him because he is like a shadow among shadows, he's like half-erased, almost not there. He doesn't move but watches him endlessly like he is brooding over something. 

Between them lie the gardens frozen, snow covered outdoor furniture, tree with the swing where no one goes to swing anymore. 

Here they have played together since Pierre's mother took the four-year old Pierre's hand and firmly dragged him over to the newly moved in family Leclerc to say hi. The rumor had it that Leclercs had a son in Pierre's age, and that was just perfect. Pierre screamed his throat soar and dug his heels in, and when an unknown lady opened the door he escaped and ran to hide behind the large pile of dirt that was hauled up in front of the strangers' house entrance. The unknown lady sent her middle son out to offer this shy young boy a glass of soda. 

That was how they first met. This is the memory: The scent of black soil, a boy with kind greenbrownish eyes who carries a glass of yellow soda inside of a Coca Cola glass in his both hands, slowly to not spill, fully focused on the glass. The concentrating turns him serious. He doesn't say anything, just hands him the glass and Pierre drinks. When he drinks, he also looks into Charles's eyes, and then Charles blushes and runs off.   
It's been them ever since, just them. Like sweethearts almost, P.G + C.L. Here their childhood took place—the days, the weeks, the years that it consisted off. And now they are looking at each other, between them lies the gardens frozen, and the time seem to have passed beyond redemption.   
For a long time, they look at each other, long after Pierre has emptied his Red Bull can and it has gone too cold to remain outside dressed only in t-shirt and underwear on the terrace step. 

Pierre gets an irresistible urge to hear Charles’s laugh. Charles face is strangely emotionless, he doesn't want to see him like this. He starts making ugly faces to make him crack a smile, to trick him to laugh, but he doesn't, he just stares ceaselessly and anxiously at him. As if they were still playing Freeze tag.   
He picks up his phone lying beside him and dials his number. The signals come through, but Charles doesn't move an inch, doesn't even flinch. He knows his phone is buzzing over there, he can see that Charles sees that he is the one calling, still he makes no move to answer. He gestures at him to pick up the phone, but Charles doesn't react at all but remains where he stands, looking at Pierre as if he belonged to another world.   
  
As if he is a taxidermy caught behind the window inside a showcase at a museum. 

It rings. It rings. Charles is frozen in place. Surely, he must hear the buzzing, and surely, he must see Pierre impatiently gesture at him to pick up his phone, but he remains where he is like turned to stone. He should answer, he gets that, but he just can't do it. He should reach inside his pocket and whip out his phone, answer. All hours and days he's waited for Pierre to call, and now he does.   
Probably Pierre has one of his better days. Charles knows he's alone at home, because he saw the others get inside the Volvo and disappear. Perhaps Pierre is calling to say: “ Why don't you come over and play some football with me ? It would make my day .”   
And he would hurry over to him, and they would have such a wonderful time all afternoon. Maybe he would stay for dinner, Pierre’s mother would probably not even question it, she would just put out a plate in front of Charles and say: “I suppose you're eating here", and so Charles did. And maybe Pierre would decide on not to hang out with Max and Andrea and his other friends tonight, maybe he would say: “You know, I think I rather hang out with you tonight!” and they would watch some movie on Netflix and be all cozy on Pierre's bed. 

Maybe they would pop some popcorn. Or even better: Charles would surprise him by running back home and fetch a box of Italian chocolates that he had brought with him from his last trip. Oh yes, he would treat them all with pralines, as many as they want! “Just help yourselves, there's enough for everyone!” he would have said, and everyone would think he was kind and generous. ”Well Charles!” had Pierre said to him with a warm tone, ”I guess it's you and me after all!” and he would look at him with affection, and Charles had blushed a tad and squeezed his hand and then they had sat down to watch a full F1 race from year 1991, Senna versus Mansell. Everything would turn for the better if he would only reach for his phone and answer it. The signals are still getting through, it's ringing and ringing. 

Charles remains by the window and looks at Pierre who sits with his phone against his ear, looks back up at him and waits. But ultimately, Pierre shrugs his shoulders, grimaces and hangs up, shakes his head, stands and walks inside. Closes the door, isn't seen again.   
He must. What else can he do?   
In that very moment it turns terrifyingly silent around Charles. He turns away and looks down on his phone that won't be buzzing again. Pierre gave up. He couldn't wait any longer. His patience ran out. You have to understand. 

Only now Charles moves. Only now he lifts his phone to his ear, hears the silence inside of it that tells him no one is there. “Hello...” He says quietly. “Hello.” 

Somewhere along the line something has broken.  
On the edge of possible happiness.  
Charles is a boy of glass. There is a crack in that glass. That's what he wrote the day before on the inside of his racing helmet.  
And he also wrote about a tiny bird with a fluttering heart, a tiny bird that doesn't dare, can't, isn't able to fly over to the bread crumbs in front of the bench in the park. 

One of Charles strongest memories is from a birthday party that Pierre had in first grade. This is the memory: He is six years old and is standing outside of Pierre's house. Inside the house it's happening, the party. He sees the light in the window. He hears children scream and laugh. It's an afternoon in the middle of the winter, and it just started to go dark. He squeezes his hand around Pierre's wrapped gift, but doesn't dare to head inside. All he has to do is buzzing the door. But he just doesn't dare to, and remains where he is. Can anyone explain how to not end up on the outside? He stands there, on the edge, looking inside. Doesn't dare to take that step, doesn't dare the whole way. In the end Pierre's mother happens to notice him and brings him inside. “How come you're standing out there in the cold my little friend? Why in the name of Earth…?”   
  
What if Pierre could do the same now—notice him, fetch him, not give up, saying: “ How come you're standing here all alone? We need to hang out more. I love you. ”   
If only he had picked up the phone. If only he had answered. He hides his face in his hands and broods. Can't anyone tell how to do this, to not end up on the outside? Why does he always have to doubt? All he has to do is pick up the phone. All he has to do is buzzing the door. All he has to do is break out of his shell. And he can't! Can't! He closes his eyes and sees before him his dying father wasting away on a bed. His father looks back at him with sorrowful eyes, and nothing that Charles does can ever be good enough. He can't change anything, he can't help. Can't, can't, can't. 

* * *


	2. Chapter 2

If only you could turn back time and erase your mistakes, throw out the stupid and rewrite your part. Charles knows if that was a possibility, he’d never feel satisfied enough with any outcome.Even if the ending is him and Pierre holding hands with warm smiles in sundown, going in for a kiss, like a romantic melodramatic novel, he’d find something in that image that didn’t feel right and change it over and over. If Pierre had been given the same possibility, he’d gone back to relive all of his happy moments with friends and family, changing nothing. He had enjoyed himself and returned to present beaming and ready to get right back into his F1 car, chasing titles and fame. Not Charles. He doesn’t have to chase him. He’s always there, right beside him if he needs him. Always, always, always.   
  
Last year the weekend before they headed for the Brazilian GP in São Paulo, Charles created a lie and Pierre doubtlessly fell for it. Charles could never undo what he did. But he needed Pierre. Needed him terribly. Wanted his affection and closeness but couldn’t stand to be another mountain on his shoulders.   
  
This is what happened the next weekend on Sunday evening, after the race had finished with Lewis celebrating another victory...   


  
Nov 11, 2018, 18:46   
Just want to warn you, I’m returning soaked in sweat. Promise to make fun of me?   
  
Nov 11, 2018, 18:59   
Promise! I can’t wait to see those big beautiful dimples of yours.   
  
Countless are the minutes Pierre points his phone’s camera lens at himself and tries to master the skill of looking perfect. He knows that’s what she wants. She wants to see his likeable dimples, not his unappealing flaws. God knows he has a few, but he does his best to appear confident about them. Like his receding hairline, hidden under a large chunk of cola brown hair, skillfully combed forward towards his face but making sure to brush it aside from time to time so that media catches his hairline through their lenses. He is meticulous about how he presents himself to the world, giving himself every reason to call himself one of the better looking on the grid.   
  
It is him, Charles Leclerc, and Lewis Hamilton in top 3 of the hottest lads in F1, according to Daniel Ricciardo. This topic stays only between them, and Daniel is mindful to make sure he comes off very serious by not segwaying his usual loud laughter as a final punch. Not desiring to be someone who makes Pierre feel humiliated and disrespected groundlessly. Pierre sometimes turns to him whenever he’s running dry of jokes because he enjoys being a festive show too. Like a humble enthusiastic common dolphin wanting to imitate the much popular likable bottlenose dolphin and hopefully take over his crown. It’s a competition, more or less, and there are losers and winners. 

Finding the time to hang out with Daniel in the paddock isn’t easy achieved—too much going on, a running race off and on track and suddenly Pierre is on his scooter on his way back to the hotel. Layers of Formula 1 dissolves from his mind and what is left is this easygoing, simple boy from France with cute dimples who brushes his teeth with peppermint toothpaste and reads himself to sleep in various lonesome double beds around the world. How Daniel spends his free time concerns him not.   
  
Them, the drivers are not March hares stuck in a gigantic hamster wheel, more like red-blooded race horses anxiously stomping around to be released into full sprint. But you can’t show it. Never stomp so your rivals can hear you. Don’t fidget with your wrist watch during a press conference. Be in control of your body. Pierre is mindful to not pace, click with his pens, quiver a leg when he sits or hesitate when being interviewed. All the hours of harboring such undefinable bounce and anticipation within makes it for an ugly explosion once the red lights are out and away they go—suddenly turning inexplicably into Mad hatters, March Hares and Queen of Hearts in the blink of an eye.   
  
Pierre drips of sweat inside his small driver room, like he always does after a tough, warm race. He sits on the blue couch, the color matching the same blue on the French flag covering the window and the blue on his unzipped Toro Rosso racing suit he’s wearing. Outside heavy rain clatters mournfully. It’s nearing the beginning of winter. The long racing season wraps up in two weeks, and autumn drowns them as a farewell before it leaves.   
He wasn’t supposed to get stuck like this, taking pictures for a girl he had never met in real life. But she was something else. The gravity he felt towards her mysterious existence only grew and grew for every morning he opened up his eyes, always more curious, would always text her: “How was your night? Did you sleep well?”, after waking up. He knows she’s still on the fence whether to buy his incredible story of living the life as Pierre Gasly, the F1 driver. She doesn’t use Twitter or Instagram; it certainly makes it harder for him. That is why his priorities are off the walls. He even got Max concerned the other day, but Max isn’t a good listener when he’s frustrated. Even then, Pierre explained he’s trying to hook up with this lovely, smart girl he’d met online, how he had to help her out with a math problem for her project at school. Max Verstappen, who has a bigger and thicker agenda than most of them combined, bigger ego, bigger confidence. Max, who’s not afraid to turn his mental filter off, raised his eyebrows and snapped at him: “Oh, so that’s your sorry fucking excuse for letting us wait? Man, come on!”   
  
The picture Pierre just took shows too much hairline. He messes with his moist hair and takes a new one. That’s better. He sends it intentionally to his friend Charles by mistake, then sends it to his online interest. He waits. Three minutes later and no reply from any of them. Her silence is more worrying. They were just talking and he can see she has read his message—there is a check mark at the bottom. He wants her to be head over heels about him. A squealing girl, jumping up and down on her bed, calling all of her friends to tweet about Pierre Gasly; her best match ever. He believes the right thing to do, as a non-expert in online dating, is to wait her out a few more hours. Opening Charles chat window, his thumbs goes to work.   
  
To Charles: Sorry Charles. This was meant for her.   
  
Not 30 seconds later his friend replies: Your hair wants to take her to bed. Hopefully she isn’t into that. Good luck!   
  
Oh boy...   
  
She is a tinder girl. Bright brown eyes looking doe-like at her viewers. Thick layers of brown hair draping the sides of her petit face, a quirky smile saying she wants a challenge. Perhaps he is exactly what she needs in her life? He believes he can have her, but she never writes first and always has an excuse when he wants to video call her. He can have her though. He can. It’s a matter of convincing her of his authenticity. This picture might do it. Pierre puts his phone away, out of sight, and walks out, heads for the bathroom. Drained and nervous, wanking comes very easy to him as he stands in the shower. He shuts his eyes and imagines her naked body whimpering underneath his mouth as he kisses her soft thigh. She pleads him to do it already! Fuck me you beast! And he does.   
It takes him little less than 10 minutes to come.   
  
  
Later in the dark of the evening, he and Charles are keeping each other company, catching up on their experiences from the race as they prepare to head back to their hotel on their motor scooters. The dark concrete they stand on has a faint shimmer to it. Thousands of water drops still lingers on their scooters’ colorful chassis despite the rain stopped hours ago and looks like tiny fireflies as they reflect dots of light coming from the yellow and white streetlights around the parking lot. Charles wipes off his wet seat once with a hand then he sits and puts his helmet down for a moment as he reaches inside his backpack.   
  
“Here, I found this inside my backpack earlier.” Charles hands Pierre a black journal that has Pierre’s autograph written on it and is filled with Pierre’s deepest, most personal and emotional contemplations. This thing shouldn’t be here. “I don’t know if you meant me to read it?” Charles is heedful about going into deep emotional matters to not back Pierre into a corner and make him defensive. Pierre is his closest friend. He prays to God their relationship can withstand anything.   
  
“Did you read it?” Pierre straddles his Honda scooter and puts his journal inside his Gucci backpack.   
  
  
Charles sighs awkwardly. “I did. Why else would you put it there?”   


“There are some things I just hate to say in person,” Pierre replies. “That's why I put it there...”   


“What things?”   


“Just... You know, what I wrote in my journal.”   


Charles gives him a look. What the hell is he on about? “I have honestly no idea what things you're referring to. I read all five pages, and none of them mentioned anything you haven't told me already.”   


“Must be the wrong journal then,” Pierre says, shrugging a shoulder.   


Charles turns his head at a passing car heading somewhere else and picks up his helmet, fiddling with the straps. “What did she say about your photo?”   


“I haven't checked yet.”   


“You got nothing to worry about.”   


Pierre laughs mildly at Charles’s confidence in his looks. “Wanna know what I'm gonna do when we get back to the hotel?”   


“Sure.” Charles knows this isn’t an invitation to hang out, but anything Pierre has to say is interesting.   


“I’m gonna send her a video of me talking to her. Then she definitely will see that I'm honest.”   


“Good idea.”   
  
Charles is happy for him. He’s proud that he’s ready to date someone again. And it’s easily understood he puts aside him for her, that he every so often hangs out with Daniel, Max and Brendon at driver’s parades meanwhile he walks five meters behind with Romain. There’s nothing strange about it.   
Deep down, no matter what, it’s Charles and Pierre. Them. Charles knows he’s the only person Pierre can fully open up to. Pierre knows it's only he who can make Charles laugh until he cries.   
So, Charles waits for Pierre. A whole childhood he’s been waiting for him. He has waited in Gaslys’ entry hall in the mornings for them to accompany each other to school. Jacket fully zipped. Beanie and gloves on.   
“Why don’t you take your jacket and hat off little friend? Pierre isn’t ready yet.”   
“Oh, it’s okay. I’m good.”   
At the go-kart track when practice had ended, he’d linger around to see if they would hang out the rest of the day too or if Pierre had decided to hang out with someone else.   
His heart is like wax. It’s melting inside his chest.   
Endless weekends in his own quiet hotel rooms has he wished for Pierre to call him or to knock on his door. Been sitting with his phone in his hand without daring to dial his number, hoping he’d send him a text so he could smile.   
Whole summer breaks have slipped by in weightlessness when Pierre’s been traveling abroad with family or friends.   
He’s been waiting, because he must, because he barely has anyone else.   
Pierre is his way out.   
And if he shuts the door— 

Tired and empty, in desperate need to pee, sweaty forehead, neck, back and chest. Charles is back inside his hotel room. A little sore in his neck muscles from driving over 305.909 km worth of g-force producing straights and turns. The wetness sitting on the skin’s surface dries up into a sticky sensation, swiftly cooling and then he feels warm again. The time is closing in on half past 10. He leans against the door, shuts his eyes, takes a deep breath.   
Every time he closes a door behind him it feels as though he just escaped something in the last minute, that whatever chased him had almost caught him.   
The guest staying wall-to-wall with him drags a chair against the wooden tiles, and Charles hurries inside the bathroom. Four and a half minutes later Romain knocks on his door and speaks loudly: “Charles, are you there?!”   
Charles holds his breath. Don’t answer. Romain knocks three times. Charles sits down on his bed and stares at the door. He’s not going to open it for him. He’s not going to give himself away. He won’t even take another breath for as long as Romain remains there.   
  
“I see. Well, perhaps we can work things out in the morning then,” he hears Romain say, and it sounds like he gives the door a disappointed stroke with his hand.   
What is that? A caress? An attempt at affection?   
Charles doesn’t answer and Romain gives up. His shoes create a squeaky echo in the hotel’s corridor as he wanders away, back to where he came from, disgruntled they didn’t have a man to man talk about their little racing incident that no one cares or talks about. Charles didn’t apologize to him, it was out of his control and as the scapegoat of F1, Romain shouldn’t go after him for answers and self-mending. When Charles was younger, he admired Romain’s ability to stand tall and confident no matter what kind of incidents he got himself into.   
Then he got to know him and he saw what was behind that facade: a self-doubting man with a chaotic mindset whose strategies to overcome pressing situations rarely flipped the coin to his own favor. 

Charles pretends to like him. He fakes a smile at Romain’s silly jokes. He pretends to be interested in his extremely uninteresting cooking topics. He pretends to listen carefully, but he barely listens at all. But he makes that effort so Pierre doesn’t have to worry he feels alone when he can’t or doesn’t want to be with him during racing weekends. 

  
Sitting on his hotel bed Charles unlocks his phone and stares at the text message sent by Pierre a few minutes ago. There’s a video clip attached to it. It’s meant for her. The girl on Tinder, his flame, his meant to be everything girl in the world. He made this just for her. Charles already thinks he knows what Pierre talks about in the video, probably tells her how much he enjoys their deep, sophisticated conversations late in the evenings and how much he’d love if they could video chat soon. In the thumbnail he looks so sweet and kind and happy it makes Charles whole body hurt. He presses play and watches Pierre’s sexy facial structure move as he speaks with that unruffled, deep voice of his, leaning against the dark bed frame with a soft dim surrounding light. It’s like a fairy godmother has put an enchantment over him. An unmistakable emotion twinkles brightly in Pierre’s eyes: he is in love.   
In love with a girl living in the clouds.   
She isn’t real. She is his fantasy; a shell. A lie, created by Charles out of desperation. Now he’s desperate for this to end. He hates what this is. What he is, this evil friend without a choice than to drill a hole into Pierre’s heart because he must. She must disappear and he must confess.   
That’s the least he can do.   
In any case she can’t continue to exist. He taps open the account settings on her page and makes it through all the steps of deleting her face from the online world. Just like that, she is gone. But he can’t rest. His bowels squirms painfully when Pierre a few minutes later sends him a text message: She just deleted her Tinder. I fucking hate this world   
What is he supposed to do? Panic flares up wildly. This isn’t right.   
  
To Pierre: Sorry   
  
And he sits there on his bed and just trembles.   
It’s so damn hard. All of it, so fucking damn hard. Hard to stop and fall.   
Disdainfully he looks at the word he just sent Pierre and types: Really sorry.   
  
To Pierre: Sorry   
  
To Pierre: I’m   
  
To Pierre: Sorry   
  
He stops typing. The phone slips through his hands and hits his feet, lands face down between them. It buzzes. His feet tickles but all of him is frozen in place. Another vibration. Had Pierre now realized what he meant? What he had done to him? He must hate him.   
A tear slowly makes it way down his right cheek. It serves him right.   
He wants to fall asleep now and never wake up.   
He is twenty-two years old and doesn’t want to live.   
Wanders in the dark. Can’t find the way out.   
Falls into pieces.   
If it’s from feeling exhausted, defeated or from hurting Pierre—he starts to sob.   
It falls over him out of the blue like a sudden blast, surprises him completely, he barely has his legs pulled up on the bed before the tears takes him, he doesn’t make it under the duvet, he is forced to curl up on top of it to protect himself.   
Out of the depths it creeps out somehow.   
It rushes forward like a violent and intense avalanche from the shadows and he can’t stop it.   
A large collection of tears from his childhood washes through him.   
All downfalls, all deceits, all years of struggle to fit in, blend in, denying himself, all what’s pushed down, his own betrayals, everything he is scared of, everything he’s ashamed of, everything he regrets, loss. The whole experience shows him how brittle he really can be. Formula 1 driver Charles Leclerc, sobbing helplessly like a child on his bed inside a hotel room in São Paulo.   
  
  
  
The next day is a Monday. Pierre is still in his hotel bed. Like that feel when you’ve hurled for a long time and there’s nothing left but exhaustion, he lies there breathing. Face pressed against a pillow. His eyes are heavy and sore.   
Doesn’t have the capacity to move.   
At 9 o’clock sharp someone knocks on his door and his trainer yells at him, asking if he’s in there and yells that their ride to the airport is leaving within ten minutes or so. He can’t stay in bed anymore.   
Like a newborn baby deer, Pierre gets out of bed on weak, shaky legs and unlocks, opens the door.   
“Hi,” he says softly, can’t come up with anything else.   
“Yeah, about time,” his trainer replies and walks away.   
  
When Pierre meets up with his trainer, Max and Brendon in the lobby, he sees Charles seated in one of the grey armchairs surrounding a small glass table in company with two of his colleagues. He throws another glance at him and smiles. Charles pretends he can’t see. He sits with legs spread wide and hands clasped together, empty gaze directed straight ahead, bleak hazel eyes. His face eerily emotionless. He looks like a stone sculpture.   
He looks like a corpse, like some kind of Barracudafish on ice on a market stand. Pierre looks at him. Looks for a long time, but Charles ceaselessly resists his attempt to make eye-contact and he gives up. He turns to Max and Brendon and easily slips into their conversation, but can’t feel entirely free from the singe left in his heart by her betrayal. His Tinder is now also demolished. It serves the online dating world right. If he can’t have her, then they can’t have him.   
  
Then they have to leave. Pierre lifts his hand at Charles to say goodbye, for now. They will see each other soon in Abu Dhabi. Surely Charles must be looking forward to that as much as him.   
Charles is motionless, doesn’t seem to care he’s leaving. His two Sauber colleagues seem weirdly unaware there’s one more guy sitting there with them. Their chatter flies over Charles’s head like thin paper planes.   
  
For some reason, Max asks Pierre, “Any idea what’s up with Charles?”   
Pierre has no idea, but lies very calmly: “Yeah, he’s meditating. He likes to do that before a takeoff.”   
  
After that he and Charles part from one another. Charles feels something inside of him crack like he’s the layer of thin ice covering a small puddle of water and someone had just dropped a stone on that layer. Nothing bleeds out because everything underneath has vaporized during the night. Emptiness is hollow and transparent, can’t bleed, doesn’t hurt.   
Suddenly he whispers quietly, “Bye.”   
To someone who isn’t there anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After rain comes...


End file.
